1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector with alignment function.
2. Description of the Related Art
A connector of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-190720 is provided with a housing (plug housing) connectable to a mating housing (receptacle housing). The housing includes a plurality of resilient engaging portions. The housing is inserted into a hole provided on a panel partition wall and each resilient engaging portion comes into contact with a peripheral edge part of the hole so that the housing is supported on the panel partition wall swingably in a direction perpendicular to a connecting direction.
The above-described conventional connector can absorb a connection error of the two housings by being swung and displaced in the direction perpendicular to the connecting direction via each resilient engaging portion with the housing inserted in the hole of the panel partition wall. Accordingly, a technique of the above connector cannot be applied in the absence of a structure equivalent to the hole of the panel partition wall. For example, the overall configuration would be complicated if used with a hydraulic control device of an automatic transmission in which a connector is mounted together with an electronic control unit, a hydraulic sensor and the like. Thus, if an operation of connecting the housing to the mating housing requires time and labor, an assembling operation of other components also is affected, thereby causing a problem of drastically reducing operation efficiency.
The present invention was completed based on the above situation and aims to proceed smoothly with a connector connecting operation and improve assembling operation efficiency.